occurred in the civil rights movement. and one of those occurred in my hometown of marion, alabama. pretty dramatic. >> host: now, where do you live now, first of all? >> guest: i live in tuscaloosa, alabama, which is 60 miles up the road but almost in another, more recent century than my small hometown. >> host: and darkroom is a lot about the civil rights movement and some of the experiences that you had. >> guest: yes. >> host: want to start with your father. what did he do for a living, and what was his experience like? >> guest: my father was a teacher. he had a background also in the ministry, but he was an amateur photographer. he did some freelance work, and that figures centrally in my book, "darkroom." >> host: and i wanted to ask about his ministering, because he'd been assigned to some churches, and you write about that in here. what was his experience? >> guest: well, this wasn't, actually, my family ice first immigration period before i was born. so in 1948 my father came to the u.s., and he studied at a semi